New Girl
by scorchedtrees
Summary: AU: They're looking for a new roommate; she's looking for a new place to stay. None of them expected to find a family. Series of drabbles based on the TV series. Eventual Rivetra.
1. I

_A/N: So this is based on the TV series with the same name. I have no idea how much of this AU I'll be writing in the future but I do want to write about Rivetra eventually happening (it took Nick and Jess a long time), so..._

_Gunter will be here later. And like idk if this will be funny I hope it will be somewhat but really idk so sorry if the genre this is listed under is misleading._

_Also 1. sorry for the cheesy-ass summary and 2. why the hell is Gunter not in the list of characters ugh._

_BTW, would anyone be interested in reading Levi/Rico as a pairing? I've written some of that before and haven't posted any of it on ffnet but I was thinking of starting a drabble collection for them as well because I like them. Idgaf if no one else does. :)))_

* * *

She doesn't look like much.

Shorter than him, at least—one less person to crack jokes about his height. Hair brighter than he expected, eyes wider, smile just a tad too big to be completely real as her story winds down and they just stare at her without speaking.

"So yeah, that's why I need a new place to stay," she finishes, clasping her hands in her lap. She looks like she wants to fidget but instead she sits straighter and looks them in the eyes. "What was the question again?"

"Do you have any pets," Levi repeats flatly, and she shakes her head.

"He hates animals," Erd explains, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back in his seat. "Won't stand for fur and hair and stuff like that. He's more into keeping places clean than your mother and grandmother and all your aunts combined, I assure you."

She shoots another quick look around the living room. "I can see that. It's a lot neater than I expected, and I was expecting you guys to be women."

Auruo, in the middle of rolling a jawbreaker against his teeth, nearly chokes and spits out the candy. "What? Why?"

"The way the ad was written," she explains. "The words used were kinda… girly, I guess. Romantic-sounding."

Auruo scowls (he wrote the ad) as Erd snickers and Levi's eyes flash to him in brief amusement. "I'm definitely not a girl," he says, and then he smiles, the my-next-line-is-going-to-be-brilliant smile Levi's seen hundreds of times. "But if you want, I'll show you I can be _very_ romant—"

"Douchebag jar?" Erd interrupts, then strokes his chin in thought. "Hm. Not bad enough. What do you think, Levi?"

Levi makes a noncommittal noise and Erd nods. "You're off the hook this time, Auruo."

Auruo pokes him in the side. "You interrupt me whenever you want with that even if I'm just saying good morning—"

Levi bites back the urge to add a comment—Petra Ral's already been introduced to the concept of Auruo and the douchebag jar; she doesn't need to know about Levi and the asshole jar just yet—and turns back to her, a faint frown on his face. She is staring at the windows now, the pale curtains drawn back to let in the late afternoon sunlight.

She turns back to them and takes a breath as if steeling herself. "I like it. It's bright and open and—I'd like to live here."

"We don't know you," Levi says bluntly before his roommates can speak. "At all."

"Okay then," she says, and the words are a jumbled rush, slipping out of her mouth to tangle amongst themselves in the open. "To tell you the truth, I'm not my usual self right now—I'm usually pretty upbeat but I just told you guys what happened and I _need_ a new place to stay—I can't live in the same place as him a day longer—"

"Levi understands," Auruo reassures her, poking his thumb at his shorter friend. "He got dumped too."

Levi tries not to glare when three pairs of eyes turn to him, and fails. "Shut the fuck up. That was six months ago."

"Don't ever mention the name Rico to him—" Erd begins, and is cut off when a couch pillow hits him in the face.

"Next time it'll be the fucking remote control," Levi warns him, and Auruo just shakes his head and looks back to Petra.

"Yeah?"

She blinks at them, looking lost for a moment before continuing. "I usually talk a lot, I like to sing, I keep all my stuff in one place and it's a mess but it's a neat mess, you know? I have a car and sometimes I come back with loads of papers because I teach middle school English, and I brew really good coffee—"

"You're in," Erd and Auruo say immediately, and Levi scowls at them.

"We didn't even—"

"Two trumps one, Levi," Erd points out.

"Your coffee is _shit_."

Levi looks around for the remote control, but it is nowhere in sight.


	2. II

_A/N: Also I have no idea how similar this will be to the actual TV show because I haven't watched much of it. Just a few beginning episodes of S1 and a few later episodes of S2, and none of S3 so yeah._

* * *

Living with a woman unrelated to them has its ups and downs, its perks and its complications. Levi should know this better than his flatmates—he and Rico shared an apartment for nearly a year before they broke up—but somehow he finds himself the most surprised whenever Petra does something unexpected.

The day she moves in she immediately sets to making the place home—for her, anyway. He, Auruo, and Erd stand aside and stare as she unpacks box after box after box, placing cute magnets on the fridge and fake flowers on the dining room table and scented soap in the shower. She claims the unused bedroom at the end of the hall and they loiter in the doorway and watch as she spreads out her bedsheets, throws stuffed animals on her pillows, unplugs the lamp already in the room to make room for her own (some hideous thing with, of all colors, a pink-and-orange lampshade).

She asks permission before pushing the couch aside (now it is slightly off-center and Levi tries not to let it drive him mad) so she can keep her beanbag chair there. It is a giant shapeless green thing that makes Levi cringe, ruins what he thinks is the clean and sophisticated decor of the room, but judging from the way his friends throw themselves on it after a nod from Petra, he is the only one who minds.

He becomes accustomed to her presence more quickly than he expected; he no longer blinks in surprise at the extra toothbrush above the sink or the multiple bottles of lotion and body wash and shampoo and conditioner and god-knows-what-else perched on the edge of the bathtub. Seeing her padding around the kitchen in the mornings in her blue flannel pajamas, coffee already in the pot (she was right, her brew is heavenly) and eggs frying on the stove; resisting the urge to pound on the bathroom door as he waits for her to finish showering, her humming clearly audible despite the sound of the water; finding her asleep on the couch when he comes back from work, nudging her awake before she ends up drooling on the paper she is trying to grade—it all becomes something he is used to, something he expects, and they fall into the routine more easily than he would have thought.

Then, of course, there are times like these, when she sits on the couch staring at the TV, some sitcom playing, her eyes watery and nose red and cheeks blotchy as she holds tissues to her face and cries, and no one has any idea what to do.

Levi, Erd, and Auruo crowd around the entrance of the kitchen and peer out at her every minute or so. "That's a comedy," Auruo says, looking utterly bewildered. "How can that make her sad?"

"You idiot," Erd says. "She's crying because she misses her ex."

"But why the hell would she miss him if he cheated—"

Levi's not sure if his own face looks particularly dangerous or if Auruo just got the point, because suddenly the younger man changes the subject. "When's Gunter getting back from South America? He knows how to deal with crying people."

"Not anytime soon enough to deal with this," Erd mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. He looks baffled, like he wants to help but has no idea how.

Levi knows the feeling only too well (to be honest, he kind of wants her to stop crying more for his sake than hers, and that's probably just one reason he has an asshole jar dedicated to him), which is why he is confused when suddenly his friends turn to him. "What?" he says when they continue to stare at him, eyes and faces almost desperate.

"You were last dumped," Auruo says—so he didn't get the point then. "You go talk to her."

"That's a bullshit excuse for 'I don't know what to do next so I'm going to force someone else to try'," Levi says.

"You know how she feels better than us," Erd points out, grabbing him by the shoulders and spinning him towards the living room, pushing him none too gently so that he stumbles through the doorway. "Go."

Levi curses under his breath but Petra is already glancing up at him, eyes red and puffy, tear tracks on her cheeks. He lets out a quiet sigh and makes his way across the room, stepping around her few remaining unpacked boxes to join her on the couch.

_You were last dumped. You go talk to her,_ Auruo said; _you know how she feels better than us,_ Erd told him. But Rico didn't cheat and neither did he; if he were to be completely honest, he'd say he has no idea why she ended their relationship. They'd been dating for nearly four years, she knew all his friends and he hers; they were paying equal shares of rent for their apartment and they could pick up the phone and answer all non-work-related calls for each other without any trouble. He thought he knew everything about her and vice versa and then one day she just broke up with him.

Shaking the thoughts from his mind, he focuses on the woman sitting before him: Petra is about Rico's size, but the similarities end there. Rico is smart, stern, practical (not that Petra isn't, but he doesn't know her well enough to judge yet) and whenever he was with her he always felt like he needed to catch up. She never did support his decision to drop out of law school, but that could have also been because they were classmates.

Petra is bright—her hair, her eyes, her clothes, and right now also her face, flushed red from crying—but she is also upset. Rico tried to never let him see her tears, and now he's not sure if that was a blessing or a curse because he has no idea what to say.

"Look," he begins haltingly, running a hand through his hair, "I don't know the guy but he was a dick, okay? Only a complete dick would bring the other girl to the apartment you guys shared—"

She swallows and he curses silently, even as he can see his friends facepalming in the corner of his vision. Why the hell is he even attempting to comfort someone? Why the fuck did his friends think he was the best person for the job? "He's not worth your tears."

"I know," Petra says, swiping a hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm usually not this emotional, don't worry. Normally I'd just be mad but… I thought we actually had something…" Her voice fades into a half-sob and she coughs into her fist, reaching for an extra tissue with another.

"Well, I guess he didn't feel the same, so don't cry over him," Levi says, and the moment the words leave his mouth he wants to shove them back in. That sounded a lot worse than how he meant them.

But Petra just shakes her head. "I know that too," she says. "I'm mad at him, and normally I'd be plotting ways to mess up his car or his life, but… it's just… we were together for three years and I seriously thought I was going to marry him. I'll be fine, I swear. I just need some time."

Funny, Levi thinks, how he's supposed to be trying to make her feel better yet her words have more of an impact on him than his do on her. _I just need some time_—that's what he always thinks, yet six months have passed and he's no more over it than he was the moment Rico said _I think we should break up_.

It must be clear that his poor attempts at comfort are going nowhere (and are in fact making him feel worse) because Erd steps in at that moment. "I know what you need," he says. _What both of you need_, his eyes add, and Levi looks away, biting back another curse. He hates it when they try to help.

Petra looks curious though, her tears somewhat subsiding as she sits up, clutching the couch pillow more tightly. "What?"

"A rebound, of course!" Erd grins. "Let's go drinking tonight!"

Levi stares at him and decides not to throttle him when he sees the tiny smile on Petra's face, but he has a feeling he knows which bar Erd plans on visiting tonight.


End file.
